s bulls of 1208 and 1209 formed the masters and students into
one association, _universitas_.[243]

According to a mediaeval custom, which has been perpetuated in the East,
and is still found for instance at the great University of El Azhar at
Cairo, the students were divided into nations: France, Normandy,
Picardy, England. It was a division by races, and not by countries; the
idea of mother countries politically divided being excluded, in theory
at least, from the Latin realm. Thus the Italians were included in the
French nation, and the Germans in the English one. Of all these
foreigners the English were the most numerous; they had in Paris six
colleges for theology alone.

The faculties were four in number: theology, law, medicine, arts. The
latter, though least in rank, was the most important from the number of
its pupils, and was a preparation for the others. The student of arts
was about fifteen years of age; he passed a first degree called
"determinance" or bachelorship; then a second one, the licence, after
which, in a solemn ceremony termed _inceptio_, the corporation of
masters invested him with the cap, the badge of mastership. He had then,
according to his pledge, to dispute for forty successive days with every
comer; then, still very youthful, and frequently beardless, he himself
began to teach. A master who taught was called a Regent, _Magister
regens_.

The principal schools were situated in the "rue du Fouarre" (straw,
litter), "vico degli Strami," says Dante, a street that still exists
under the same name, but the ancient houses of which are gradually
disappearing. In this formerly dark and narrow street, surrounded by
lanes with names carrying us far back into the past ("rue de la
Parcheminerie," &c), the most illustrious masters taught, and the most
singular disorders arose. The students come from the four corners of
Europe without a farthing, having, in consequence, nothing to lose, and
to whom ample privileges had been granted, did not shine by their
discipline. Neither was the population of the quarter an exemplary
one.[244] We gather from the royal ordinances that the rue du Fouarre,
"vicus ultra parvum pontem, vocatus gallice la rue du Feurre," had to be
closed at night by barriers and chains, because of individuals who had
the wicked habit of establishing themselves at night, with their
_ribaudes_, "mulieres immundae!" in the lecture-rooms, and leaving, on
their departure, by way of a joke,